Nothing too exciting this month, still reimplementing systems and catching back up to where I left off back in August.
The systems architecture that I wrote about last time is in place, although it took longer than expected to finish up because I, like, forgot how programming works. Been a minute since I finished that CS degree. But it feels good to get back into a software engineering mindset, and I'm very happy with the result.
Fuel, RCS & Gyro Systems
The development of this new version has been pretty abstract up to this point, so I figured what this spaceship flying game could really use is the ability to fly a spaceship. To that end, I got to work on reimplementing the RCS system. I talked about this back in June & July, so you can scroll down for more info, but basically the thrusters now work in a more realistic (and satisfying!) way, they can break and wear down, you can fix them and upgrade them, and I've added a few new in-cockpit features. I mean, the cockpit doesn't exist yet, I haven't got to the 1st person stuff, but it's all working with default keyboard controls.
Getting the RCS system back up & running required that I reimplement the fuel tank, which is also now upgradable. The tank & it's fuel have mass, so it'll be up to you whether you prefer a smaller tank for a more maneuverable ship at the cost of more frequent refueling, or a big-ass long haul tank for the full lonely space bastard experience.
The RCS thrusters can now provide auto-stabilization c/o the gyro system, which means that I also had to reimplement the gyro system. Again, I wrote about this in more detail last summer if you want to dig deeper, but basically everything is cooler than it was before.
I should be clear here that shops don't exist in the game yet, so you can't actually upgrade anything, but the systems are in place & ready to be eventually hooked up to a shop UI of some sort.
Coming Up Next
I've still got work to do on all the systems mentioned above, but they're just about done. Next up is the booster system, which should go pretty quickly. With a flyable ship back in the game, I can move on to system-scale simulation which should catch me up to where I left off last summer.
Epilogue That Nobody Asked For
 |
| numbers unknown to science |
